Sometimes it is good to come across reminders that words, while powerful, and potentially imbued with virtuous sounding echos, can often hide deeply compromising realities. Take the passage below, for example, found in the testimony at the trial of a Japanese popular rights activist who was planning a Japan led/guided revolution in Korea. I have removed the words “Korea” and “Asia” and “Japan” and “Japanese” etc. and replace with “we” and “they” etc. in order to show the template that lies beneath. As a fun experiment try replacing these words with other countries from the last year of news:
“[We] wish to bring peace and happiness to the people suffering there…Our action is derived from compassion, a spirit of mutual help; it was not aimed at war with the people….[They] are our brothers and sisters. Just as they may offer help to [us] [we] too must be ready to help them. There should be no suspicion of one who sees another people suffering, feels compassion toward them and wishes to help them. It is the person who does not respond that way that should be suspected. [Their] customs are…uncivilized…and [their] penal codes are barbaric….For [us] to just watch and do nothing for them was unbearable to those of us who love freedom and equality, and our mind was made up to help them…Our struggle in [that country] is not a war in the usual sense; it is directed not against the country itself nor against its people but against a handful of leaders there who are oppressing the people….” (14)
While the plot failed, Japan went on to annex Korea only a few decades later. The quote is cited in an old essay by Etô Shinkichi, “Two Faces of Janus: The Role of Japanese Activists in Modern East Asia” from 1986. As I indicated in my earlier posting on the Norwegian SS soldier, I’m increasingly fascinated by how easily accounts from what we may imagine to be diametrically opposed ideologies or distant historical contexts can often sound so similar when we merely remove a few nouns here and there.
I haven’t thought this through yet, but I don’t think it is possible or even desirable to completely desensitize ourselves to powerful rhetoric, or extract some pure rational argument supporting every cause both noble and wicked. Given that, how do we situate ourselves in a world buzzing with these kinds of messages? It is a real issue for me, and one that I find myself thinking about a lot…